


Recovery

by AnnetheCatDetective



Category: St. Elsewhere
Genre: First time having consensual sex after rape, M/M, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-27 19:48:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18745888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/pseuds/AnnetheCatDetective
Summary: Jack is back from Seattle, but has a difficult time getting back to work, in ways that are more complicated than anticipated. Victor wouldn't be most people's first choice for help. Certainly nobody's first choice for any situation involving tact, and he knows it. When Jack asks him for a favor, he's willing to do anything, but his own feelings make things even more complicated. Or maybe much, much easier than anticipated.





	Recovery

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SegaBarrett](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/gifts).



> Just an extra treat fic because an excuse to write more of these boys is something I always welcome.

    The first time Victor sees Jack back at work, he’s standing outside an exam room, his arms folded across his chest. His face mostly healed.

 

    The first time Victor sees Jack back at work, he’s unprepared for what he feels.

 

    “Hey.” He sidles closer, unaccountably anxious, hestating. The last time he’d seen him, Jack hadn’t known him. He’d barely known himself. “I-- Hey. How-- how was Seattle?”

 

    “Good, good.” Jack smiles. Also anxious, also hesitant.

 

    “How are you?”

 

    “Sometimes good. Okay. Better.”

 

    “Great. Or-- good. Better.”

 

    “Yeah.” He glances around. “Afraid to ask what everybody knows, about…”

 

    “I’m never really-- People know you were in rough shape. People know they did a kit. Not the results.”

 

    “But they can guess.”

 

    “I’m sorry.” He shrinks in on himself. He’d speculated, too. He’d guessed and gossiped. He’d been afraid even though it wasn’t him going, he’d thought about the worst, and then the worst had happened. But at least Jack had survived it. If he hadn’t, he just doesn’t know. Everything would be so different.

 

    “Don’t be. I mean… I am where I am, I guess.”

 

    “Well-- if there’s anything I can ever do-- I mean it, you can call me any time, for anything. I-- I’d do anything you needed.”

 

    “That’s nice of you, Victor, but--”

 

    “No, really! I want to, if you-- I want to be the kind of friend you need. And I don’t want to be insensitive!”

 

    “Well… thanks.”

 

    “I know I can be… I know I’m kind of a-- I know. But I wouldn’t do that to you. Say anything nasty, or… I mean, I wouldn’t!”

 

    “I don’t think you’re a pig, Victor.”

 

    “You’re the only one who doesn’t.” He snorts.

 

    “Sometimes you put your foot in your mouth, but it’s not like you’re so much worse than any other guy. Actually… Actually, there’s one thing you could do.”

 

    “Sure! Name it.”

 

    “Just… come stand in the exam room with me for five minutes. And if I ask you to, step out and stand by the door and make sure no one else comes in, but I-- Can you do that for me?”

 

    “Of course.” He blinks.

 

    He’s not sure why this is the thing, but watching Jack’s posture as they step into the room, he can’t stop himself guessing.

 

    It happened in the infirmary, whatever happened. It had to have. In the exam room. And you can’t be a doctor if you can’t be in an exam room with another person.

 

    He doesn’t know what he’s feeling. Jack asked _him_. Out of everyone he could have asked, he picked Victor, and sure, Victor had been convenient and had offered, but he wouldn’t be surprised if most people would have turned him down and waited for someone else.

 

    He stays over by the door, ready to step out if asked, and then he wonders if maybe he shouldn’t _block_ the door, and so he shifts over along the wall, half-watching Jack stand in the far corner, arms around himself, breathing a little… not labored, exactly, but very deliberate. Jack glances to him, a couple of times, but mostly he watches the clock, and Victor does his best not to stare.

 

    “Hey, Victor?” Jack breaks the silence, two minutes in. “What would you do, if you couldn’t work in the OR?”

 

    “Gosh, I don’t… I mean, I guess I’d have to go back home and, you know. Start over in life. If I thought I could afford another round of student loans. And it’s not like there’s anything else I would really _want_ to do, so… it wouldn’t really _matter_. Why-- what would-- what would you do?”

 

    “I guess it wouldn’t really matter.” He smiles sadly, looking down now. “Nothing else I would really want to do, either.”

 

    “Your whole life, you never wanted to be anything but a doctor?”

 

    “Well. When I was a kid, um… Astronaut, I guess. Until I found out there’s a height restriction and I’m too tall by one inch.”

 

    “Wait-- one inch? One inch too tall to be an astronaut?”

 

    “Yeah.” He laughs. “So that’s why I’m a doctor.”

 

    “Jack, you’re telling me if we can’t hack it in medicine, we can’t fall back on being astronauts?”

 

    He looks up at Victor at last, laughing harder.

 

    “This is terrible news!” Victor continues, valiantly struggling to keep a straight face. “Do you think they’ll let us in if we slouch?”

 

    “No, we’ll, uh… we won’t fit in the suits. We won’t be able to go.”

 

    “You’re killing me here. Okay, well now I really can’t lose this job, if the fallback position of astronaut isn’t open to us.”

 

    Jack crosses the room, un-slouching and looking at Victor from up close. “No, I guess not. We’re about the same, huh? So… yeah. Can’t, can’t lose this job.”

 

    “This is really a disaster, because if no hospital on earth would take me, I always figured, you know… eventually, they’ll need a surgeon in space.”

 

    “ _Any_ hospital on earth would take _you_.”

 

    “Well… I think I’ll stick with this one, if you will. I mean, since we-- we can’t open the first hospital in space. St. Joseph’s of, um...”

 

    “Mir.”

 

    “Yeah, we’re really out of luck. Not being able to go do that.”

 

    “Think we’ll do okay down here?”

 

    Jack is so _close_ , and Victor wants to _touch_. He wants to hold him, or kiss him, or play with his curls… He wants to _adore_ him. He’s afraid to reach out at all, afraid to take his elbow or touch his hand, standing here, where he’d been so anxious just to _be_ …

 

    “I think we’ve been here for four minutes.” Victor glances up at the clock. “One more.”

 

    “One more.” Jack nods. “Do you have to be anywhere?”

 

    “Nope.” He shakes his head. “Not unless someone pages me.”

 

    “I think I want to try something.” Jack takes a deep breath, stepping back and patting the table. “Sit for me?”

 

    Victor nods, scrambling to comply.

 

    “Standing around talking about how we can’t run off and join the space program is-- well, I don’t know, probably a good sign I can do it in here, but it’s not my _job_.”

 

    “You, um, you wanna do your job?”

 

    “I want to be sure that I _can_.”

 

    “On me?” Victor’s voice creeps higher.

 

    “You can’t possibly be more nervous than I am right now. I’m not asking to give you a full physical. Just a quick exam.”

 

    “Okay, sure.” He nods. “Anything.”

 

    He sits still and lets Jack check his eyes and his throat, listen to a few deep breaths.

 

    “Your heart rate’s a little elevated.” Jack says.

 

    “It does that.”

 

    “Surprised you get nervous being examined.”

 

    “Oh. Um. I don’t, normally. I mean, I’m not nervous!” He says, although it’s highly debatable, and the fact that Jack is still standing between his knees holding a stethoscope to his chest isn’t doing that elevated heart rate any favors. “So. Can I play the piano anymore?”

 

    Jack drops the stethoscope, picking up his hand instead, manipulating it carefully the way he once had when it had been sprained. He’s focused and gentle, touch sliding along a tendon here, feeling out the way everything moves there, checking the flexibility… He’s still close, and he’s still not doing Victor’s heart rate any favors.

 

    He looks up, and looks slightly alarmed. Only slightly, which is nice, but not nice enough to stop Victor worrying. What is his face doing? Is it too much? Is he obvious?

 

    “Victor, are you sure you’re feeling all right?”

 

    “Uhh…”

 

    Jack grabs the thermometer. “You’re flushed. And a little sweaty.”

 

    “Oh-- No, that’s-- It’s fine, I’m sure.”

 

    “Heart rate’s not fast enough to worry about, but you seem a little… something.”

 

    “We should talk about this anywhere else.” He looks away. He still sees Jack nod, out of the corner of his eye.

 

    “I’m still going to take your temperature.” He says.

 

    Victor acquiesces. It’s normal, anyway.

 

    “Where do you want to talk?” Jack asks him, giving him the space at last to hop down from the exam table.

 

    “Anywhere private. Anywhere you’re _comfortable_.”

 

    “We can check a couple lounges. Is something wrong?”

 

    “No, no… This just really isn’t where I think you want to-- you know? Hear things.”

 

    “I don’t know, I’m okay in here with you. You’ve really been good for my nerves.” Jack smiles, leaning back against the counter. “Sorry if I’ve done the opposite for you. If you’re… if it’s uncomfortable, because of…”

 

    “No! You don’t-- I mean, what happened was-- But that’s not--! You don’t make me uncomfortable. I mean, I’m always uncomfortable. But I like you!” Victor babbles, gesturing wildly and then pulling back in on himself. He sits down on the stool, rolling himself into the corner furthest from the door, keeping a wide space between the two of them as he wraps his own arms around himself. “I like you a lot. And when I went to see you before, before you left for Seattle, I-- I like you a lot, and I’ve been so… I’ve just been thinking, a lot. About you. And how it… how whatever happened must have been so awful. And-- and I don’t know if there’s anything I could really say or do that wouldn’t make things worse, because every time I try to say the right thing, I mean, I really mess it up, Jack. I know I do. And the last thing I want to do is make it worse, with you.”

 

    “You came to see me?”

 

    “Yeah. You were-- you were pretty out of it. Medicated. When I did. It was… it was hard. You being like that. And then I wanted to go back, in case you were a little more yourself and maybe-- I don’t know. Maybe if I kept my mouth shut mostly, you wouldn’t mind the company, or… But then they, um, they sent you home so you could have some… you know, distance, and time, and your family wanted to look after you and Pete while you recovered… so I just saw you the once before you went. The one time.”

 

    “Well, thanks.”

 

    “You don’t have to thank me.”

 

    “Still. It’s nice knowing you did.”

 

    “I just…” He takes a deep breath. “I _like_ you. And I wish… I wish anything had been different I guess. I just like you. I mean, I _care_ about you. And I-- I don’t know. Maybe I should have said it before? Or… But you never think about how to say that kind of thing to a guy, and then… and I don’t want to bother you with it or anything, and I don’t want to make things-- I mean… I wouldn’t bother you about it, but you deserve to know, don’t you?”

 

    “You don’t bother me, Victor.” Jack says softly, moving a little closer. He holds out a hand. “Come on. Let’s… let’s finish this conversation somewhere else. Or… we can save it for when you get off work, and maybe you can come over, and we’ll finish it then.”

 

    Victor looks up, eyes wide. “Yeah?”

 

    “Yeah. I… appreciate… being cared about.”

 

    “Oh.”

 

    “And I’m not uncomfortable with you. You’ve kept me very comfortable. I’ve had enough trouble being in an exam room alone, let alone with someone else, and I haven’t… I haven’t been uncomfortable, with you.”

 

    Victor takes his hand at last, though he doesn’t let Jack take his weight when he stands, only balances by him a little bit, and doesn’t know what to do about how he feels when Jack smiles at him, warm and shy and soft, no more fragile than he ever was.

 

    They head out into the hallway, where Jack leans against the wall, looking Victor over. “So when’s your day over?”

 

    “Oh-- it’s-- nine. But if that’s too late--”

 

    “That’s not too late. Stop on by.”

 

    “Jack… um, you know, what I said earlier…”

 

    “I know what you meant. And I’m asking you to come over later to talk about it.”

 

    Victor’s mouth forms a silent ‘oh’, and he nods. It seems impossible, it seems beyond impossible, but the way Jack looks at him… he has to know. And he wouldn’t ask Victor to come over to talk in private if he didn’t feel safe with him.

 

    Well… how could he not know? The sweating and the heartbeat and the blushing and stammering, and then talking about _liking_ him-- how junior high school could he get?-- he’d figure it out.

 

    He shows up on Jack’s doorstep after work, anxiety gnawing at his bones Jack opens the door with a tired smile, the set of his shoulders relaxing once Victor is inside and the door locked behind him.

 

    “Hi.” Victor greets. “So I thought about-- I mean… I missed the chance to say ‘get well soon’, and I thought I should do something to say ‘welcome back’, but I was-- I was standing there in the gift shop and nothing seemed… I didn’t know what would be _right_ , or if you’d even like flowers or anything, and maybe flowers would be fine if you were still stuck in a hospital bed, but maybe at home it’s just something to clean up after when they die, and I _wanted_ \-- I wanted to bring something, but every time I imagined showing up with something, I imagined it going wrong, and I felt dumb, and nervous… so. I didn’t bring flowers or anything. But, um, if you… if you wanted-- if you liked-- I mean I could… I could bring you flowers tomorrow?”

 

    Jack smiles at him, soft and slightly bewildered as he works to process the flood of words.

 

    “If you ever want to bring me flowers, I don’t think it will go wrong.” He says at last, motioning Victor over to the sofa. “Or anything else you ever want to do. C’mere.”

 

    Victor sits, leaving space between them. “Okay. Well-- okay, yeah. Then… if you asked me over again, I would… bring you flowers.”

 

    “I’ll have to ask you over again, then.” Jack smiles, though it doesn’t last as long as he’d like. “If you’re interested-- No, I know.”

 

    “I like you a lot.” He says, wincing at how it comes out. He’s said that already, and it still sounds vaguely junior high school.

 

    “I know. And I’m glad you do. It’s just… it isn’t that easy.”

 

    “Because of what happened.” Victor nods. “No, I get it, Jack, of course. You don’t have to-- We don’t have to-- I don’t have any expectations. Honestly, the fact you even want to look at me, let alone ask me over, I mean…”

 

    “I need you to understand…” Jack looks down at his hands, where they grip at his knees. “What happened to me was… brutal. Terrifying. Painful. I remember it in bits and pieces. I have nightmares and I don’t know if they’re accurate. When I do remember, it’s… vivid.”

 

    “PTSD.”

 

    “Seems like. I panic sometimes. I wake Pete up screaming as often as he does me right now. I’m a mess. More than usual. So before you ask, or offer, you should know. It’s bad. I’ve got an appointment to talk to somebody about it now that I’m back. I’m working on it. But it doesn’t just go away.”

 

    “I wasn’t going to ask for anything. I didn’t think you’d want… I mean, I always figured-- I mean… I didn’t imagine you’d want anything from me before, and now… I just didn’t want to bother you with it.”

 

    “Like I said. You don’t bother me.” He looks back up at last, ghost of that smile touching his lips. “I feel safe with you. And if you wanted things from me, I don’t think it would remind me of… that. You are as far from the man who did this to me as it _gets_. I know you, Victor. I like you. I’m comfortable with being close to you and touching you… you don’t bother me.”

 

    “Well… I don’t mind being woken up sometimes.” Victor rests his hand on the cushion between them. “I’ll be honest, I never really thought I had a chance with you. I figured you were…”

 

    “Straight?”

 

    He shrugs. Jack’s hand moves to rest next to his.

 

    “I’m not.”

 

    “Me, neither. Sure have pretended to be.”

 

    “What makes me such a catch, anyway? That you want to put up with all this?”

 

    “You kidding?” Victor lets his hand cover Jack’s, feeling it warm beneath his own. “You… you were always so nice. To everybody, but-- but to me. A lot of people are nice and still-- I see a lot of nice people, who still don’t-- I mean, I just… can’t always gel, with people, I guess. But you and I, we always… we got along okay mostly. You care a lot about people, and I just respect that. And I think you’re cute, when you smile. You work really hard and… a lot of people complain, but you always think about other people first, I just… I don’t know. Makes me think someone should think about you first. And I guess I do.”

 

    “You, too. You’re cute, when you smile. And-- and if I’ve ever implied that you don’t care enough about people, because you’re a surgeon, because your job is in and out in a way internal medicine isn’t, I want you to know I don’t think that. I know you care about people. I appreciate being one of them.”

 

    “I want to take care of you, you know? I don’t know what I’m doing. I never… gave myself this, with a guy. But you should know, I’d never-- I would never do anything to hurt you.”

 

    “I know. And I-- Look, it means something to me that you want to be careful with me. I know you were leaving me space, before, and thinking about how… how things are for me, right now. I just… right now, what I need is just to have something. Something that’s mine, something I can go after. Or… someone I want going after me.”

 

    Victor lifts his hand, pressing it between both his own a moment. “You mean you--?”

 

    “I want to try.”

 

    “Wow, well, okay, Jack. You’re the boss, I mean, if you… if that’s what you think is gonna help, I definitely, I definitely want to help you. Um, you know, not only-- not only because it means I get to have sex with you, but you won’t hear me complaining, you know. Not about anything.”

 

    “Come on.” He gets to his feet, his hand still in Victor’s, uses it to tug him up, tug him to follow. “Help me feel good about myself again. And I-- We’ve both got things to forget, don’t we? We can do that together.”

 

    Victor nods, helpless to do anything but follow, but bring Jack’s hand up to his lips, but kiss over every knuckle. He might not have anything like Jack does to get over, but they’ve both seen a lot of trauma in their few years at St. Eligius, they could both use a night with someone, a night to just forget everything else. He kicks his shoes off somewhere between the bedroom door and the bed, tripping over himself to get there, to be rid of them without having to let go of Jack with either hand, and he’s rewarded with Jack catching him before he can send himself tumbling to the floor, Jack laughing softly and kissing him square on the mouth for the very first time.

 

    He doesn’t know how he got here or what the steps are supposed to be. He knows Jack is still fragile, but he has to trust that he’s less fragile-- less than he was, and maybe less than he would be with somebody else. He knows there’s an enormous pressure not to screw everything up, but he trusts Jack, and Jack trusts him, so shouldn’t he trust himself? Maybe he’s a better choice than most men… how many other men who go with other guys does Jack even know? And he’s definitely a better choice than a stranger, not only because he knows what Jack went through and how he was in the aftermath and because he already cares about him, but because Jack knows him. Jack probably knows all the worst things about him, or at least he’s heard the worst things about him from other people around the hospital, and knows what he’s like, and if he likes him anyway, isn’t that something?”

 

    The first kiss leads to a second. They get situated on the bed, side by side, for a third. A fourth.

 

    “This isn’t too fast, is it?” He pants.

 

    “Not for me. I have noticed you before, you know.” Jack trails a finger up his chest.

 

    “I didn’t know.”

 

    “Oh. Well, I have. I’ve noticed your hands.”

 

    He guides one to his hip as if to make a point. Victor doesn’t let himself wander from that spot just yet, but he lets himself squeeze, and that seems to be the right move. He goes in for a fifth kiss.

 

    “I’ve noticed yours, too.” He says, between kisses five and six.

 

    “Mm-- I’ve noticed… I’ve noticed the kind of figure you cut in surgical scrubs.”

 

    “Yeah?”

 

    “Yeah.”

 

    “I’ve noticed…” Victor pauses. He has very much noticed several things about Jack. By some miracle, he manages not to blurt out that his ass is among them. Very high on the list, actually. “Um, I’ve noticed… I’ve noticed your arms. A lot of things about you.”

 

    “Yeah? Okay.” Jack drags his hands up, up to his chest, and it’s a nice chest.

 

    Everything is great, the kissing and the petting, the way both are getting progressively heavier, until Victor gets about three buttons undone and Jack’s _not_ great, not at all.

 

    “Hey, hey…” He whispers, taking his hands away. “It’s okay. We don’t have to tonight. It’s okay. It’s just me, it’s, you know, we’re here in your room and we can take a rain check, I can come back another night or we can talk a little or-- anything you need.”

 

    Jack takes a couple of deep breaths, reaching out and finding Victor’s hand. For a long moment, he just focuses on breathing, and Victor watches him, watches the fear recede from his face as he comes back to himself, to the here and now. He’s not sure how much he helps, he’s not sure how much harm he might have done… but Jack had wanted his hand. He’d been anxious, taut, a little like how he’d been in the exam room, before they had started really talking, but he’s relaxing out of it at what seems like a good pace. Victor knows from panic attacks, he knows it could be worse. He just feels lousy for having triggered it. Shouldn’t he have known better somehow? Could he have noticed Jack reacting after the first button, stopped before he got that bad?

 

    “No, no-- don’t go, I-- I’m okay.” Jack squeezes gently, smiling when Victor squeezes back. “Well, I will be. I might need to undress myself, that’s all. I didn’t-- I didn’t see that one coming.”

 

    “I’m sorry, Jack.”

 

    “Don’t be. You weren’t rough, you didn’t do anything wrong, it’s just… how it is for now. But…” He licks his lips.  “You could watch me undress myself.”

 

    “You can leave your hat on, you can leave your hat on, you can leave your hat on…” Victor croons, making himself comfortable to do just that, lying on his stomach and looking up at Jack. He watches the shirt come off, the pants, the boxers, only reaches out for him when he’s completely naked, hand gently returning to wrap around his hip. “I want to take good care of you.”

 

    Jack nods, long fingers toying with the collar of Victor’s shirt. “Yeah. You know, I like this shirt on you…”

 

    “You do?”

 

    “Brings out your eyes.”

 

    “Oh. You, too.”

 

    “Victor… I’m not wearing a shirt. And you’re not looking at my eyes.”

 

    “Sorry, I got distracted. You’re very distracting.”

 

    Jack gives the knot of his tie a tug, loosening it. “Why don’t you join me? I could use a distraction. I can always enjoy seeing you in this shirt in the morning...”

 

    “Y-yeah?”

 

    “Yeah.”

 

    He accepts Jack’s help readily, in getting himself stripped, in getting back to lying side by side, touching. Still gentle and tentative, but Jack’s focus is encouraging, dropped down below the waist as it is.

 

    “Are we good?” He asks, just in case.

 

    “Very, very good.” Jack nods. “Very.”

 

    “Here…” Victor’s hand slides up to Jack’s shoulder, urging him to roll onto his back. He leans in to kiss him, buoyed by the way Jack kisses back. For now, at least, maybe the worst is behind them… not forever, but for tonight. He kisses his way down Jack’s neck, achingly gentle, careful not to pin him down, to keep a little weight off him, thinking now about all sorts of things he’s never thought about before with someone. He’s thought about his partners’ comfort before, sure, but it’s never felt quite so fraught with potential to do harm. Things with Roberta had been good and awful and weird and complicated, but there were things he never had to worry about.

 

    He goes slow, focuses on Jack, on making sure he doesn’t tense, but it’s fine. The kissing, as it progresses lower, seems like the right move. Jack runs a hand through his hair, gently first and then to halt him.

 

    “Okay?” Victor lifts his head.

 

    “I’m okay. I just wanted to say, there’s condoms.” He blushes. “I figured if I was going to ask you to come over, I should…”

 

    “Oh.” Victor is probably blushing as well. He usually is, he thinks. He always seems pinker than he thinks is normal, when he catches sight of his reflection. Maybe compared to that, it’s not too noticeable. “Great, yeah.”

 

    “Um… I-- We should probably… There are things I _want_ , that I don’t think I’m ready for. You know? I want you to… I want to… I want to reclaim things, for myself. I want to do that with you. I just need… I need to take time. Start with just being able to be sexual at all. Work my way up to more.”

 

    “What, like… handjobs? Because I was thinking…” Victor gives a meaningful glance down to where he’d been going, with his mouth. Licks his lips.

 

    “Oh, no, um… blowjobs is good. Just… I’m not sure when penetration’s going to be on the table.”

 

    “If you need to top--”

 

    “No.” He shakes his head, grabbing for one of Victor’s hands. “No, I want you on top. If you like that, I mean.”

 

    “Yeah, I like that. I definitely-- I mean, I’ve looked, you know, at you. I mean, I’ve… I think it would be nice.” He nods. Jack guides his touch down, back. Victor squeezes gently, and when that doesn’t spark any panic, he starts kneading. “I’ve noticed this cute tush before.”

 

    Jack laughs, leaning in to be kissed. “Noticed it, huh? You spend a lot of time noticing me, Victor?”

 

    “Mm-- maybe. Spent enough time. Noticing this.” He gives a firmer squeeze. “Noticing your hair smells nice. Noticing a lot of things about you. Never… never noticed you noticing me.”

 

    “Well how could I help that?” Jack drags him in for another kiss, another. “You’re a very easy man to notice.”

 

    “Is that a good thing?”

 

    “I think so. You’re _you_. I’m not even sure who I’d _be_ if I was brave enough to just be completely myself. Maybe if I could be more like you, I’d be more interesting.”

 

    “Oh, I’m glad you’re like yourself. I mean, _I’m_ interested in you. And everybody likes you. And they should, because you’re… wow. You’re really fantastic, and I mean that.”

 

    “ _You’re_ fantastic.” And another kiss, more heated, passes between them. Becomes two, three, _more_.

 

    “Okay, okay, condom…” Victor bites at his lip, tugging gently, freezing on realizing he’d gotten carried away.

 

    Jack doesn’t freeze up this time, though, just strokes his back once to assure him it’s fine, before going for the condoms.

 

    “Yeah.” He puts one in Victor’s hand. “Yeah.”

 

    “I just want to take care of you.” He kisses Jack’s chest again, starts back on his downward trail. “I’ll take such good care of you, Jack, I promise…”

 

    “I know you will.” Jack sighs, and this time he buries his hand in Victor’s hair, drags his fingers through, tugging gently, drawing a little moan out of him. “You like that?”

 

    “Yeah. Yeah, you can pull on that if you want, I’m-- I like that just fine.” He nods, meeting Jack’s eyes briefly. “So far so good?”

 

    “I’ll let you know if I’m not.”

 

    “Okay.” Victor lowers his head again, and this time he doesn’t stop, not until he’s kissed his way all the way down and it’s time to get the condom on. Jack kneads at his shoulder with a firm, strong hand, the other still going through his hair.

 

    It feels so _good_ , to have this attention in return, even when his focus is all on making Jack feel good, feel safe, feel confident in reclaiming whatever parts of himself need reclaiming.

 

    He’d been so lost… they’d brought him to St. Eligius and he’d been… He’s just as tall as Victor is, six four, but he’d looked so small when Victor had seen him after. He looked so worked-over, a mass of bruises, of tacky blood, his gaze so unfocused… Victor had _ached_ to see him like that, not fully aware of where he was. Medicated, by the time he’d gotten to him, but it wasn’t the drugs that had him out of it, it was the trauma.

 

    He hadn’t realized how much it could hurt not to have Jack’s friendship, until the moment Jack looked at him and didn’t know him… He had missed the spark that used to light the looks that passed between them, he’d wondered if it would ever come back, if Jack would ever be the same Jack… if he could ever do anything that could help. He hadn’t realized how much he truly, deeply cared about Jack until he heard the whispers and felt himself go cold straight through, felt his knees go weak, and he’d rushed to see him, and he had thought about Jack, about the pain and the fear and the other complicated emotions that must have come with an assault like the one he’d suffered, but it wasn’t just that.

 

    He’d thought about Pete, who Jack had _just_ got back safe, who he’d been so worried over and so unable to help, and how if he couldn’t remember where and when he was in life, if he was so mentally adrift and so wounded, what would happen with Pete? He’d thought about how guilty Jack would feel later, even though of course he’d been unwell, unable to take care of everything! He’d ached knowing he was in no position to help in a concrete way. And then they told him they had bundled Jack and Pete both off to Seattle and he’d worried about how Jack had been on the trip, how he’d held himself together, how he’d dealt with the crowds, with having to parent when he wasn’t ready to take care of himself, even if it was just for the duration of the cross-country flight…

 

    The weeks that Jack had been away, Victor had found himself thinking in two time zones. If it wasn’t enough of a sign he had it bad, reacting to seeing Jack hurt the way he had, he kept thinking about what time it was on the west coast, and found he was picturing Jack when he did it, not his aunt, not the beach, but Jack. He had found himself wishing that he had a number he could call, just to be able to tell Jack that everyone missed him back at St. Eligius, just to be able to tell him he hoped he was feeling better. Just to be able to ask how he was feeling, how Pete was doing, how… Just to be able to hear his voice, even rough and lost.

 

    Even then, until the moment he saw him again, he could never have prepared himself. Everything about Jack is just… so much. When did Jack get to be so much?

 

    Victor gets the condom rolled on, gets to work with his mouth. He’s… a little unversed, when it comes to the particular act, but he’s been on the receiving end, if not often. He doesn’t remember it taking a whole lot of skill in order to feel good-- he remembers just having been supremely grateful to have a mouth on him at all.

 

    Jack seems grateful for him. Jack squeezes his shoulder and plays through his hair and makes so much more _noise_ than Victor would have imagined-- so quiet, most of the time, Jack Morrison… so soft-spoken, so gentle, he’d have imagined just the sound of hard breathing, soft little grunts towards the end, but Jack _moans_. Not loud, just a _lot_ , and Victor loves it. He has to think he’s doing something right, with Jack making all that noise, touching him, hips rocking up.

 

    He’s a little sloppy, a little more eager than skilled. Okay, a lot more eager than skilled. And maybe a lot sloppy. A lot more into the giving than he’d anticipated being, not that he thought he wouldn’t enjoy it on some level. He’s spent his whole adult life avoiding any opportunity to let himself explore an _enormous_ facet of his sexuality, and he’s spent the last two-- if not the last four-- years specifically wanting to explore that facet with Jack, he never thought he wouldn’t like doing it. Maybe to some people it was a chore, or a thing you said yes to-- if you were a girl-- to avoid going all the way if you were saving something for marriage or if you didn’t have birth control, or… well, whatever reasons people had not to be interested in doing it, but he’s always been _interested_.

 

    Too interested, probably, everything is _too_ , too much and too fast and too meaningful. His mind is in a dozen-odd places at once, not only in bed with them but in everything they’ve ever shared, in memories of Jack waving goodbye in the corridor with a soft and private smile that didn’t mean anything like _this_ but still meant everything to Victor, of how gentle his laugh could be, of sitting side by side celebrating their second year of residency, and feeling as if the rest of the table faded away a moment and it was only Jack talking directly to him, of Jack’s birthday, of the scent of his shampoo, of seeing him with a baby in his arms and feeling things he’s not ready to think about, of sitting at his bedside and holding one big hand in both his own, feeling him so still and yet so warm, Jack unable to focus on him, but here and now Jack is focused on nothing else…

 

    He manages to only gag himself once, he learns his lesson fast. He can say that for himself, he’s picking up what works and what doesn’t pretty well for a first-timer with limited second-hand experience.

 

    Jack tugs him away gently when he’s done, and looks at him like he’s hungry for him still-- not that Victor notices, until he draws him close and removes his fogged and somewhat askew glasses.

 

    “Wow.” Jack smooths Victor’s hair back into place, or at least he tries to. “Hey… that was… nice.”

 

    “Yeah?” Victor strokes his chest, watches the way he shivers. “Good.”

 

    Jack kisses him, softly, before giving his own chest a gentle push, easing him back down. “Give me a sec to clean up and I’ll come back and take care of you.”

 

    “Tonight’s all about you, Jack. You don’t have to--”

 

    “I want to.” He smiles, reassuring, gentle, familiar. Beautiful. When did he start thinking of Jack as _beautiful_? It’s an unlikely descriptor, and yet it keeps coming to mind, every time he smiles just so. “But give me just a minute.”

 

    Victor lies back, and listens to Jack as he tosses the condom in the bathroom trash, as the sink runs. It doesn’t hurt to have a moment, a moment where his hands and mouth aren’t on Jack’s body, where he isn’t finding himself grinding against the mattress without trying… a moment to calm down.

 

    When Jack comes back to bed he looks pale and a little sweaty, and miles away from how he’d looked just moments ago.

 

    “Are you okay-- Are we okay?” Victor hesitates, wanting to reach out. Afraid of messing everything up further.

 

    “We’re okay. I’m… maybe. Probably.” Jack doesn’t sound convinced. His hand is shaking, hard.

 

    “You don’t have to do anything for me. Really.” Victor insists. He’s not exactly in the mood anymore, not with Jack like this. He holds his hand out, in the space between them, allowing Jack the space not to be touched.

 

    “It’s not you. It really isn’t.” Jack’s hand finds his. It’s _cold_ , Jack’s hands have never been cold in all the time Victor has known him, not compared to his own anyway. He’s pretty sure he remembers every time their hands have touched, every handshake, every passed object, the one time Jack had been the one to take care of his sprained hand, and then tonight…

 

    “You still don’t have to. It’s late, and we probably both… I mean… I’ll take a rain check.”

 

    “It’s not you.” He takes a deep breath. “It’s just… I, uh… I keep thinking, about-- I’ve had the test, you know, since…”

 

    “Oh.”

 

    “Yeah. And I’m-- the results were fine! I would have told you before, even with condoms, if the results weren’t-- no, the results were fine! I just-- sometimes, there’s a… sometimes you don’t _know_ at first. I’ve-- I’ve had the test twice, actually. Fine both times, but… I just… I keep thinking, what if it’s there, what if I’ve got this… ticking time bomb, incubating? And all I can do is keep getting the test done, and… and you _know_ what it’s… what people think, even if they don’t say it. So I can either go to some clinic and hope no one recognizes me, and let people think what they’re going to think, or I can get it done here, where everyone knows _why_ , and… and I don’t know. I don’t know if it matters. Because the people at the clinic aren’t wrong, just because they don’t know. I mean, I’m bisexual. I’m… trying, anyway, to be sexually active with another man. Sometimes I think I’d rather deal with people knowing that than knowing what happened. And sometimes I think… I can’t risk it. I can’t risk losing my career, I’ve got a kid to take care of, and if the wrong person sees me there and doesn’t know why, it’s… So then it’s dealing with how quiet and stiff people get when they have to think about the fact that I was-- that I-- What happened.”

 

    Victor squeezes his hand gently.

 

    “If you need a friend-- well, not-- I mean, if you need _me_ , I could-- I could be a friend, or, or more than a friend. But I mean I could… Wherever you go--”

 

    “No. Not to a clinic. That’s your career, too.”

 

    “At St. Eligius, then. People would understand you wanting a friend along. If you ever did.”

 

    “Thanks.” He squeezes back. “Just between you and me, very much more than a friend. Victor… I’d still like you to stay, if you want to. Although I doubt we’ll have time in the morning for that rain check.”

 

    “Another night. Gives me an excuse to keep coming back.”

 

    “But someone’s probably going to wake up crying in a couple of hours, so if you need to go home, I get it.”

 

    “I’ll just have to warm up some milk for whoever wakes up crying.” He yawns, scooting closer. “But if I wake up crying, you’ve got to take care of me.”

 

    “What do you wake up crying about?” Jack strokes his cheek, hand not so shaky now, the one still in Victor’s grip steady.

 

    Over the past few years, Victor has been held at gunpoint, nearly blown up twice, been beaten up more times than he can count, mugged twice, threatened more often than he thinks can be average, been arrested, and seen the man he’s only just realized he’s come to love lying insensate in a hospital bed, bruised and bloodied and in a fugue state after being sexually assaulted…

 

    “Usually about Craig.” He says.

 

    Jack laughs.

 

    Victor kisses him.

  



End file.
